Spinoza and Contemporary Biology

Henri Atlan is Professor Emeritus of Biophysics at the Universities of Paris VI and Jerusalem and Honorary Director of Research in Philosophy of Biology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Robert Boncardo is Sessional Tutor in the Faculty of Theology and Philosophy at Australian Catholic University. He completed his doctorate in French Studies at the University of Sydney and Aix-Marseille Université. Inja Stracenski is Co-ordinator and Lecturer in the School of Jewish Theology at The University of Potsdam

• Preface by Pierre MachereyForewordIntroduction: Why Spinoza?Part I: The Intelligible and the Sensible: The Relevance of Spinoza's DoctrineChapter 1. The Order of Philosophizing: NatureChapter 2. From a Biophysics of the Individual to the Nature of the Human MindChapter 3. Matter and Thought: Identity and DifferencesChapter 4. The UnfinishedPart II: Psychophysical CausationsChapter 5. Ideas and ThingsChapter 6. The Body Cannot Determine the Mind to Think (Ethics III, 2, First Move)Chapter 7. Detour Through Cognitive NeurosciencesChapter 8. Causes, Correlations, Information, Neuronal CodesChapter 9. Unconscious Consciousness. From the Inadequate to the AdequateChapter 10. Methods of Research and Metaphysical TemptationsChapter 11. The "Whole of Nature" Under Each AttributeChapter 12. Emergence and Supervenience: Anomalous Monism and Synthetic IdentityConclusionAppendix: The conatusBibliography

Beyond a fecund commentary about Spinoza that will inflect future interpretations, more broadly, Atlan has long been a critic of the obfuscations arising from a dualist metaphysics setting mind and brain in opposition and this latest work brilliantly settles the score.